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Reims of unfurled fabric. Six yards of cyan colored silk billowing on a washing line.

Dozens of cotton, chiffons, gauzes and organzas neatly stacked between wisps of tissue paper.

I'm Shahid Abari and I grew up in a home spilling with Sari's.

Today for the BBC World Service, I'm exploring what the Sari means to the next generation of young Asian women.

This is the story of my mother's Sari.

When my Bengali mother arrived in the UK in 1979 with four young children,

she carried a suitcase of saris and wore them everywhere at the grossers in the post office on the school run. and now that I write about clothes as an academic

their histories how we wear them and what they tell us about ourselves I wonder why

Sari's plays so little a part in my own life.

In this program I want to find out the story of the Sari,

how it feels to wear one and what it means to women like my mother. But most of all I want to find out

about mothers and daughters how the clothes we wear might tell us something about

the experiences we share and the lives we live differently.

Like all good stories this one begins with a shopping trip in East London. So this is Green Street and it's about 6 o'clock.

It is 6 o'clock in the evening, which is when you imagine everything winding down except that you can't walk down this street

achieving bull and whaling children.

So this place is just kind of kicking off.

People will be shopping until seven, 8, maybe 9.

So we're trying across this very busy East London road to head to a shop called Domini and Domini is famous in our family

because it's a very expensive high-end sari slash Asian boutique.

...